Like, totally, dude. This assignment is, like, awesome.
If English words had jobs, by Christopher Hoyt, was absolutely hilarious. The letter, written by the word LIKE, and the corresponding answers from management (named MERCURY), had me laughing all the way through. Using comedy, the article talks about how language continues to adapt and change as our culture changes.
👉 One of the tongue-in-cheek points I think Hoyt was trying to make is the average English vocabulary is shrinking. LIKE said that they understood management had to make some "tough calls about which words you would keep on staff."
I decided I wanted to see if that was true. My husband and I have had conversations about diminished word use and the increase of emojis and gifs to get points across. A quick Google search led me to an article by David Shariatmadari: Why it's time to stop worrying about the decline of the English language. Right away, this article seemed to debunk the entire silly letter written by Hoyt.
There is no such thing as linguistic decline, so far as the expressive capacity of the spoken or written word is concerned. We need not fear a breakdown in communication. Our language will always be as flexible and sophisticated as it has been up to now. Those who warn about the deterioration of English haven’t learned about the history of the language, and don’t understand the nature of their own complaints – which are simply statements of preference for the way of doing things they have become used to.
MERCURY replied to LIKE in one of their letters:
I wish we could pretend that it was the heyday of wordsmithing around here, but it’s not. I wish people were still willing to pay top dollar for the perfectly apt verb, or spend an entire minute searching for the best possible noun. But that’s not the name of the game these days. Precision, lucid expression, and brilliant flights of semantic imagination are not in high demand right now, and I’ve had to lay off a lot of good folks because of it.
Shariamadari counters the idea that language is changing in a negative way.
Linguistic decline is the cultural equivalent of the boy who cried wolf, except the wolf never turns up. Perhaps this is why, even though the idea that language is going to the dogs is widespread, nothing much has been done to mitigate it: it’s a powerful intuition, but the evidence of its effects has simply never materialised. That is because it is unscientific nonsense.
👉 Another point I believe Hoyt was trying to make is that language really does evolve and change as culture evolves and changes.
This is another response to LIKE from their "boss", MERCURY:
So we’re adapting as best we can. And I don’t mean to downplay the strain that this is putting on you, but frankly, some of our other words have had to make even bigger sacrifices. Take AWESOME, for instance. You think his work environment hasn’t changed? I have to talk him down from the ledge once a week. He’s so fed up with it. It used to be nothing but seraphs and glaciers and tsunami for him, and now he has to go to work every time someone finds an extra peanut M&M in their bag. And did you know that LITERALLY is actually in therapy these days? All those years he spent honing one meaning, and now the poor guy has to go and completely reverse all the work himself. It’s really done a number on him. He’s taking medication for schizophrenic episodes.
The play on words throughout the entire piece was entertaining. Language is constantly changing. It's, like, totally awesome if you think about it. I think Shariamadri sums things up perfectly when he says:
The hard truth is that English, like all other languages, is constantly evolving. It is the speed of the change, within our own short lives, that creates the illusion of decline. Because change is often generational, older speakers recognise that the norms they grew up with are falling away, replaced with new ones they are not as comfortable using. This cognitive difficulty doesn’t feel good, and the bad feelings are translated into criticism and complaint. We tend to find intellectual justifications for our personal preferences, whatever their motivation. If we lived for hundreds of years, we would be able to see the bigger picture. Because when you zoom out, you can appreciate that language change is not just a question of slovenliness: it happens at every level, from the superficial to the structural.
Works Cited:
Hoyt, Christopher. "If English words had jobs." Unravel, October 5, 2019, unravellingmag.com/articles/if-english-words-had-jobs.
Shariatmadari, David. "Why it's time to stop worrying about the decline of the English language." The Guardian, August 15, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/15/why-its-time-to-stop-worrying-about-the-decline-of-the-english-language
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